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Spring Cleaning: Keep, Toss, Donate or Sell

pbs.org

Have you done your spring cleaning yet? Let’s check out how the Legislature is doing with clearing their closets, and deciding what things to keep or toss, or which to donate or sell.

Things you can sell are sometimes the easiest to let go of. Alexandria Rep. Lance Harris says there’s a piece of state land the Archdiocese would like to purchase.

“The Diocese runs a school called St. Mary’s, and it’s been around since 1954. They’ve been leasing the land since then and this lets them go into negotiations to buy it.”

There’s also a tract Northwestern State inherited.

“The university’s applying for permission to sell the property, invest it in the University Foundation for the purpose of funding scholarships,” the university’s Gil Gilson explained.

Those measures, and bills to transfer control of some museums now managed by the Secretary of State, are moving easily through the legislature.

Other things are more difficult to dump, like defunct boards and commissions.

“These self-reported ‘inactive’ to the Legislative Auditor, and so this allows us to just, kind of clean the house a little bit,” Bossier City Senator Ryan Gatti said of his SB 148.     

“I appreciate your effort to kind of clean this up and do away with boards and commissions that are inactive, but since there’s no fiscal impact and it really doesn’t hurt anything, perhaps delay it until you have a chance to hear from more people,” New Orleans Senator Troy Carter suggested.

That bill is on hold.

What about tossing out laws that have been tossed out by the courts –like the “Balanced Treatment Act” which required equal classroom time for creation and evolution?

“This resulted in a case known as Edwards v. Aguillard. That case was decided in 1987, and it is – in a word – unconstitutional,” Baton Rouge Senator Dan Claitor said of his bill to repeal the law.

But Senator John Milkovich says he considers the law a gift from a friend.

“I have to give you a heads up that former Senator Keith is a personal friend of mine,” Milkovich said, referring to the author of the Balanced Treatment Act. Milkovich had other reasons to hold onto the law, including his personal beliefs and his hopes the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately reverse its ruling. He cited Plessy v. Ferguson -- the “separate but equal” ruling -- as an example.

“If we’re scrubbing the books of all statutes which are unconstitutional, I think we must recognize what the courts deem to be constitutional or unconstitutional is sometimes a moving target.”

In other words, we might need it again someday.

That Senate committee agreed with Milkovich, but a half dozen other Claitor-authored bills to repeal unconstitutional laws are pending hearings in House committees.